Category Archives: Politics

February 22, 2011 · 6:30 pm

Poll: Whites Without College Degrees Especially Pessimistic About Economy

I’m not really surprised by this, but still don’t get why this group primarily votes Republican.

Well, I have some theories…

  1. They are particularly susceptible to the Republican disinformation campaign.
  2. Racial prejudice
  3. Most importantly, they have been hit hardest by the Economic downturn and don’t know where to turn.

My guess is this demographic was open to Obama and the Democrats, but was the first group to become disillusioned when the focus turned to Health Care, instead of Jobs, and no one was punished for the economic collapse.

These folks aren’t dumb.  They know the Rich and the Corporations have bought the government.

The Democrats need to work harder to make their case to this group and not let the GOP control the narrative.

It would also help if they acted like real Democrats instead of Republican Lites and delivered for this group…

From the Washington Post:

The deep recession has had a profound effect on virtually every segment of the country’s population. But if there is an epicenter of financial stress and frustration, it is among whites without college degrees.

By many measures, this politically sensitive group has emerged from the recession with a particularly dark view of the economy and the financial future. Whites without college degrees also are the most apt to blame Washington for the problems, and are exceedingly harsh in their judgment of the Obama administration and its economic policies.

These findings come from a new national survey conducted by The Washington Post, the Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University. The numbers represent a fresh look at the effects of the long recession on all Americans, but particularly “non-college whites,” a group of long-fought-over voters often considered a bellwether of the political ramifications of economic woes.

A mere 10 percent of whites without college degrees say they are satisfied with the nation’s current economic situation. Most – 56 percent – say the country’s best days are in the past, and more, 61 percent, say it will be a long time before the economy begins to recover.

Fully 43 percent of non-college whites say “hard work and determination are no guarantees of success,” and nearly half doubt that they have enough education and skills to compete in the job market.

Not everything is bleak in this group’s outlook, according to the survey. Nearly seven in 10 say they are mostly optimistic about their future, although that is somewhat lower than for whites with college degrees, and for most other groups in the population. More than six in 10 report feeling at least somewhat secure financially.

The survey also found differences in the outlooks of younger and older whites without college degrees. Those younger than 50 were more optimistic about the future than were those older than 50 and were somewhat less pessimistic about how long it will take the economy to recover.

via Poll: Whites without college degrees especially pessimistic about economy.

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February 21, 2011 · 8:52 pm

E.J. Dionne Jr. – The Tea Party is Winning

Great- and unfortunately very accurate- editorial from The Washington Post:

Thanks to the Tea Party, we are now told that all our problems will be solved by cutting government programs. Thus the House Republicans’ budget bill passed Saturday. They foresee nirvana if we simply reduce our spending on Head Start, Pell grants for college access, teen pregnancy prevention, clean-water programs, K-12 education and a host of other areas.

Does anyone really think that cutting such programs will create jobs or help Americans get ahead? But give the Tea Party guys credit: They have seized the political and media agenda and made budget cutting as fashionable as Justin Bieber was five minutes ago.

More striking is the Tea Party’s influence on Washington’s political elite, which looks down at the more extreme men and women of the right when they appear on Fox News but ends up carrying their water.

Lori Montgomery reported in The Post last week that a bipartisan group of senators thinks a sensible deficit reduction package would involve lifting the Social Security retirement age to 69 and reforming taxes, purportedly to raise revenue, in a way that would cut the top income tax rate for the wealthy from 35 percent to 29 percent.

Only a body dominated by millionaires could define “shared sacrifice” as telling nurses’ aides and coal miners they have to work until age 69 while sharply cutting tax rates on wealthy people. I see why conservative Republicans like this. I honestly don’t get why Democrats – “the party of the people,” I’ve heard – would come near such an idea.

More:  E.J. Dionne Jr. – The Tea Party is winning.

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February 21, 2011 · 7:48 pm

What the Right-wing Assault on Women, Unions, the Environment, Health Care and PBS Is All About | News & Politics | AlterNet

Another article from Alternet worth reading…

No one is looking at the underlying philosophical struggle– and that’s what is really going on.  This is a battle between two different world views:

In the 2008 campaign, candidate Obama accurately described the basis of American democracy: Empathy – citizens caring for each other, both social and personal responsibility-acting on that care, and an ethic of excellence. From these, our freedoms and our way of life follow, as does the role of government: to protect and empower everyone equally. Protection includes safety, health, the environment, pensions and empowerment starts with education and infrastructure. No one can be free without these, and without a commitment to care and act on that care by one’s fellow citizens.

The conservative worldview rejects all of that.

Conservatives believe in individual responsibility alone, not social responsibility. They don’t think government should help its citizens. That is, they don’t think citizens should help each other. The part of government they want to cut is not the military (we have 174 bases around the world), not government subsidies to corporations, not the aspect of government that fits their worldview. They want to cut the part that helps people. Why? Because that violates individual responsibility.

via What the Right-wing Assault on Women, Unions, the Environment, Health Care and PBS Is All About | News & Politics | AlterNet.

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February 21, 2011 · 7:43 pm

We Face Budget Gaps for One Reason: Corporations Have Mastered the Art of not Paying Their Fair Share of Taxes | News & Politics | AlterNet

This one is worth reading in it’s entirety…

From Alternet:

Since the second world war, corporations have shifted much of the federal tax burden from themselves to the public – and especially onto the middle-income members of the public. No wonder a tax “revolt” developed, yet it did not push to stop or reverse that shift. Corporations had focused public anger elsewhere, against government expenditures as “wasteful” and against public employees as inefficient.

Organisations such as Chambers of Commerce and corporations’ academic and political allies together shaped the public debate. They did not want it to be about who does and does not pay the taxes. Instead, they steered the “tax revolt” against taxes in general (on businesses and individuals alike). The corporations’ efforts saved them far more in reduced taxes than the costs of their political contributions, lobbyists’ fees and public relations campaigns.

At the same time, corporations also lobbied successfully for many loopholes in the tax laws. The official federal tax rate on profits is now around 35% for large corporations, which theoretically have to pay additional state taxes on their profits and local taxes on their property (land, buildings, business inventories, etc). Those official and theoretical tax obligations have been used to support conservatives’ claims that corporations pay half or more of their profits to federal, state and local levels of government combined. However, because of loopholes, the truth is very different. The actual tax payments of corporations, and especially large corporations, are far lower than their official, theoretical obligations.

via We Face Budget Gaps for One Reason: Corporations Have Mastered the Art of not Paying Their Fair Share of Taxes | News & Politics | AlterNet.

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February 21, 2011 · 7:15 pm

Alternatives to Austerity

I ran part of this great article by Nobel Prize winning Economist Joseph Stiglitz, from the Guardian, back in December….

It’s worth running again…

In the US (and some other advanced industrial countries), any deficit-reduction agenda has to be set in the context of what happened over the last decade:

• A massive increase in defence expenditures, fuelled by two fruitless wars, but going well beyond that;

• Growth in inequality, with the top 1% garnering more than 20% of the country’s income, accompanied by a weakening of the middle class – median US household income has fallen by more than 5% over the last decade, and was in decline even before the recession;

• Underinvestment in the public sector, including in infrastructure, evidenced so dramatically by the collapse of New Orleans’s levies; and

• Growth in corporate welfare, from bank bailouts to ethanol subsidies to a continuation of agricultural subsidies, even when those subsidies have been ruled illegal by the World Trade Organisation.

As a result, it is relatively easy to formulate a deficit-reduction package that boosts efficiency, bolsters growth and reduces inequality. Five core ingredients are required.

First, spending on high-return public investments should be increased. Even if this widens the deficit in the short run, it will reduce the national debt in the long run. What business wouldn’t jump at investment opportunities yielding returns in excess of 10% if it could borrow capital – as the US government can – for less than 3% interest?

Second, military expenditures must be cut – not just funding for the fruitless wars, but also for the weapons that don’t work against enemies that don’t exist. The US has continued as if the cold war never came to an end, spending nearly as much on defence as the rest of the world combined.

Following this is the need to eliminate corporate welfare. Even as America has stripped away its safety net for people, it has strengthened the safety net for firms, evidenced so clearly in the great recession with the bailouts of AIG, Goldman Sachs, and other banks. Corporate welfare accounts for nearly 50% of total income in some parts of US agro-business, with billions of dollars in cotton subsidies, for example, going to a few rich farmers, while lowering prices and increasing poverty among competitors in the developing world.

An especially egregious form of corporate special treatment is that afforded to the drug companies. Even though the US government is the largest buyer of their products, it is not allowed to negotiate prices, thereby fuelling an estimated increase in corporate revenues – and costs to the government – approaching $1tn dollars over a decade.

Another example is the smorgasbord of special benefits provided to the energy sector, especially oil and gas, thereby simultaneously robbing the treasury, distorting resource allocation and destroying the environment. Then there are the seemingly endless giveaways of national resources – from the free spectrum provided to broadcasters to the low royalties levied on mining companies to the subsidies to lumber companies.

Creating a fairer and more efficient tax system, by eliminating the special treatment of capital gains and dividends, is also needed. Why should those who work for a living be subject to higher tax rates than those who reap their livelihood from speculation (often at the expense of others)?

Finally, with more than 20% of all income going to the top 1%, a slight increase, say 5%, in taxes actually paid would bring in more than $1tn over the course of a decade.

A deficit-reduction package crafted along these lines would more than meet even the most ardent deficit hawk’s demands. It would increase efficiency, promote growth, improve the environment and benefit workers and the middle class.

There’s only one problem: it wouldn’t benefit those at the top, or the corporate and other special interests that have come to dominate America’s policymaking. Its compelling logic is precisely why there is little chance that such a reasonable proposal would ever be adopted.

More:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/dec/06/us-deficit-cut-austerity-alternatives

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February 20, 2011 · 12:53 pm

Empire at the End of Decadence – NYTimes.com

I encourage you to click the link at the bottom and see the chart accompanying this article by Charles Blow.

This is really no surprise to those of us who travel outside the USA.  It’s just not safe to talk about it in the press or publicly in the USA.

People basically lose it when you try to explain that the USA is not the world leader, in every area, it once was and is slipping further behind in so many ways.

Denial is among out biggest problems today…

And the fact that the Republicans only want to make it worse…

The fact is, we are in danger of moving more and more in the direction of becoming a Third World Country if we don’t start to invest in the future…

Preventing that and securing the future is more important than some arbitrary budget target or letting the Rich keep their tax cuts…

It’s time for us to stop lying to ourselves about this country.

America is great in many ways, but on a whole host of measures — some of which are shown in the accompanying chart — we have become the laggards of the industrialized world. Not only are we not No. 1 — “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” — we are among the worst of the worst.

Yet this reality and the urgency that it ushers in is too hard for many Americans to digest. They would prefer to continue to bathe in platitudes about America’s greatness, to view our eroding empire through the gauzy vapors of past grandeur.

Republicans have even submitted a draconian budget that would make deep cuts into the tiny vein that is nonsecurity discretionary spending, cuts that would prove devastating to the poor and working class.

At the very time that many Americans — and the very country itself — are struggling to emerge from a very deep hole, the Republican proposal would simply throw the dirt in on top of us.

This cannot be. Financing for education and social services isn’t simply about handouts to the hardscrabble, it is about building an infrastructure that can produce healthy, engaged and well-educated citizens who can compete in an increasingly cutthroat global economy.

One of President Obama’s new catchphrases is “win the future,” but we can’t win the future by ceding the present and romanticizing the past.

via Empire at the End of Decadence – NYTimes.com.

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February 20, 2011 · 12:44 pm

The Human Cost of Budget Cutting – NYTimes.com

Great article from Bob Herbert on the impact of the budget wars on real people.

Since we no longer have a free, functioning press in this country- it’s all corporate owned and entertainment focused- these stories are not being told.

Frankly, what is being done to the poor by the Rich and the Government is immoral.

There is just no one to call them on it…

Community action agencies were established decades ago to undergird the fight against poverty throughout the U.S., in big cities, small towns, rural areas — wherever there were people in trouble. It’s the only comprehensive antipoverty effort in the country, and the need for them has only grown in the current long and terrible economic climate.

President Obama’s proposal to cut the approximately $700 million grant by 50 percent is an initiative with no upside. The $350 million reduction is meaningless in terms of the federal budget deficits, but it is enough to wreck many of these fine programs and hurt an awful lot of people, including children and the elderly.

It seemed like just a moment ago that these programs were held in high esteem by the president, a former community organizer himself. Community action agencies received $5 billion in stimulus funds to train people to weatherize homes. They ended up being ranked eighth out of 200 federal programs that got stimulus money in terms of the number of jobs created.

Now, suddenly, these agencies are dispensable.

The block grant money from the federal government is highly leveraged. The agencies secure additional public and private funds that enable them to support a wide network of programs that offer an astonishing array of important services. These include Head Start, job training and child care programs, legal services, affordable housing for the elderly, domestic violence intervention, and on and on.

When these kinds of programs are zeroed out, the impact is profound. Jobs are eliminated and vital services are no longer available. Poverty and its associated costs to governments increase. In terms of budgets, it’s the definition of being penny-wise and pound-foolish. ABCD, for example, has been very effective in preventing evictions, working diligently with landlords, tenants and others to keep individuals and families from becoming homeless. When such efforts are successful, they not only keep individuals and families in their homes, they keep taxpayers from having to foot the very expensive bill of housing individuals and families in shelters.

via The Human Cost of Budget Cutting – NYTimes.com.

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February 20, 2011 · 12:38 pm

The G.O.P.’s Post-Tucson Traumatic Stress Disorder – NYTimes.com

Interesting article from Frank Rich today…

If the GOP is tiring of the rabid right and people realize they have nothing to offer, will the Dems finally capitalize on the GOP lack of ideas?

Or will they show the usually lack of nerve and cede the communications war in the name of bi-partisanship?

If they had had an effective communications strategy and some balls, we would have a better Health Care plan-with the Public Option- and they would still control the House of Representatives.  Oh, and we might have had a chance at true infrastructure development and Financial Reform.  Then President Obama might be viewed more as FDR than the Herbert Hoover imagery that is being used more and more often in the press…

Glenn Beck’s ratings at Fox News continued their steady decline, falling to an all-time low last month. He has lost 39 percent of his viewers in a year and 48 percent of the prime 25-to-54 age demographic. His strenuous recent efforts to portray the Egyptian revolution as an apocalyptic leftist-jihadist conspiracy have inspired more laughs than adherents.

Sarah Palin’s tailspin is also pronounced. It can be seen in polls, certainly: the ABC News-Washington Post survey found that 30 percent of Americans approved of her response to the Tucson massacre and 46 percent did not. (Obama’s numbers in the same poll were 78 percent favorable, 12 percent negative.) But equally telling was the fate of a Palin speech scheduled for May at a so-called Patriots & Warriors Gala in Glendale, Colo.

Tickets to see Palin, announced at $185 on Jan. 16, eight days after Tucson, were slashed to half-price in early February. Then the speech was canceled altogether, with the organizers blaming “safety concerns resulting from an onslaught of negative feedback.” But when The Denver Post sought out the Glendale police chief, he reported there had been no threats or other causes for alarm. The real “negative feedback” may have been anemic ticket sales, particularly if they were to cover Palin’s standard $100,000 fee.

What may at long last be dawning on some Republican grandees is that a provocateur who puts her political adversaries in the cross hairs and then instructs her acolytes to “RELOAD” frightens most voters.

via The G.O.P.’s Post-Tucson Traumatic Stress Disorder – NYTimes.com.

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February 19, 2011 · 7:30 pm

Out of Control in the House – NYTimes.com

Great editorial in the NY Times….

Here are a couple of lengthy excerpts and a link to the full article.  It’s worth reading in it’s entirety…

Are there any adults in charge of the House? Watching this week’s frenzied slash-and-burn budget contest, we had to conclude the answer to that is no.

First Speaker John Boehner’s Republican leadership proposed cutting the rest of the 2011 budget by $32 billion. But that wasn’t enough for his fanatical freshmen, who demanded that it be cut by $61 billion, destroying vital government programs with gleeful abandon.

Even that wasn’t enough for leaders of the hard-line Republican Study Committee, which represents two-thirds of House Republicans. They proposed cutting another $20 billion, for a ludicrous total of $81 billion, all out of the next seven months of government operations.

Now some members want to go still further. On Tuesday, the House began debating the list of proposed cuts, and more than 500 amendments were filed, mostly from Republicans trying to cut still more out of — or end — programs they dislike. One would stop paying dues to the United Nations. Others would cut all financing for the health care reform law, or Planned Parenthood, or any foreign aid to a country that regularly disagrees with the United States at the United Nations.

If the Republicans got their way, it would wreak havoc on Americans’ lives and national security. This blood sport also has nothing to do with the programs that are driving up the long-term deficit: Medicare, Medicaid and, to a lesser extent, Social Security.

When he presented his 2012 budget on Monday, President Obama avoided those difficult issues. On Tuesday, he tried to bring a little adult supervision to the budget debate by offering to begin discussing with Republican leaders ways to solve those big-ticket problems. Senate Republican leaders and the House budget chairman, Paul Ryan, have indicated a willingness to discuss entitlements. (Given the political volatility of these issues, the talks need to be behind closed doors.)

Mr. Boehner could show leadership, and bring some sense back to the House, by reminding his members that entitlements are where the big money lies. Instead, he has endorsed the race to remove $100 billion from nonsecurity discretionary spending for the rest of 2011.

Asked on Tuesday if he was concerned that the proposed cuts could lead to tens of thousands of new layoffs, he said he was not. “Over the last two years, since President Obama has taken office, the federal government has added 200,000 new federal jobs,” he said. “And if some of those jobs are lost in this, so be it.”

His figure of 200,000 new federal workers appears to be more than three times higher than reality. Several credible economists have said that an $81 billion cut could result in up to 800,000 layoffs throughout the American economy.

AND

In all of their posturing, Republican lawmakers have studiously avoided making clear to voters what vital government services would be slashed or disappear if they got their way — like investment in cancer research or a sharp reduction in federal meat inspections, or the number of police on the street, or agents that keep the borders secure, or the number of teachers in your kids’ schools.

Those cuts will never get past the Senate, and, on Tuesday, Mr. Obama said he would veto such job-killing cuts if they arrive at his desk. That puts the House leadership on notice. Will they follow the mob and allow the government to shut down if the cuts are not enacted? Or will they take back control of the House and steer it toward reality?

via Out of Control in the House – NYTimes.com.

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February 19, 2011 · 7:16 pm

Boomers Find 401(k) Plans Come Up Short – WSJ.com

This is a scary story that is going to be getting more attention on the next few years…

Of course, Congressmen have pensions, so this is another issue they will not be able to relate to…

The retirement savings plans that many baby boomers thought would see them through old age are falling short in many cases.

The median household headed by a person aged 60 to 62 with a 401(k) account has less than one-quarter of what is needed in that account to maintain its standard of living in retirement, according to data compiled by the Federal Reserve and analyzed by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College for The Wall Street Journal. Even counting Social Security and any pensions or other savings, most 401(k) participants appear to have insufficient savings. Data from other sources also show big gaps between savings and what people need, and the financial crisis has made things worse.

This analysis uses estimates of 401(k) balances from the end of 2010 and of salaries from 2009. It assumes people need 85% of their working income after they retire in order to maintain their standard of living, a common yardstick.

Facing shortfalls, many people are postponing retirement, moving to cheaper housing, buying less-expensive food, cutting back on travel, taking bigger risks with their investments and making other sacrifices they never imagined.

“Inevitably, we find that, for the average person, there is not enough there,” says financial adviser Paul Merritt of NTrust Wealth Management in Virginia Beach, Va., who has found himself advising many retirement-age people with too little savings. “The discussion turns out to be: What kind of part-time work do you want to do after you retire?”

He has clients contemplating part-time work into their 70s, he says.

Tax-deferred 401(k) retirement accounts came into wide use in the 1980s, making baby boomers trying to retire now among the first to rely heavily on them.

via Boomers Find 401(k) Plans Come Up Short – WSJ.com.

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